The figure of the Bangladeshi undocumented immigrant loomed large over the assembly elections campaign in West Bengal, fuelled by the controversial special intensive revision of electoral rolls that led to the disenfranchisement of 2.71 million people and injected anxiety about illegal immigrants into the sociopolitical mainstream. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) successfully argued to large chunks of the Hindu population in the border state that the previous Trinamool Congress (TMC) government was lenient on undocumented immigrants and was not doing enough to secure the state’s frontiers. It received a landslide mandate in a state where power has changed hands only twice in the last 50 years.
Now the elections are over. Suvendu Adhikari has taken oath as the first BJP chief minister of a state where the political right has never managed to create more than a toehold despite Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee hailing from the province. Adhikari must now eschew the pitched rhetoric of the election campaign and focus on the sober daily grind of effective governance. Unfortunately, his recent comments on suspected undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants are not in line with the constitutional responsibility of his exalted position. This newspaper reported on Friday that Adhikari said Bangladeshi immigrants detained in the state should be directly handed over to the Border Security Force for deportation, instead of being produced before courts, in line with a new rule that came into effect in the state a day ago. Instructions were already issued to the police commissioner and the Railway Protection Force (RPF), the CM said. Although he did not name the act under which the BJP government in Bengal made the policy shift for prosecution of immigrants, it appeared the CM was referring to the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, passed by Parliament in April last year.
Unfortunately, such a diktat might run afoul of a person’s right to a fair trial. The law of the land and due process must take precedence over politics, and courts must make the final determination before a person is declared an infiltrator. Mere suspicion is not enough grounds to expel a person from the country. Similarly, it is the courts, not the police or other law enforcement agencies, which are competent and empowered to decide whether a person is an Indian citizen. This judicial process cannot be short-circuited.
Over the past year, a number of people have been pushed back into Bangladesh on the suspicion that they are undocumented migrants without adequate due process. Some of those people have proven in courts that their expulsions were illegal and they were removed from their homes and workplaces despite possessing citizenship papers. Moreover, many people – a majority of them poor migrant labourers speaking Bengali and working in other states – have complained that they were attacked or intimidated by local administrations and police on the suspicion of being undocumented immigrants. Against such a backdrop, the chief minister should exercise greater caution while talking about this fraught subject.
No sovereign nation can tolerate unchecked migration or a flouting of citizenship rules. But a fair and transparent application of citizenship and immigration laws cannot become synonymous with vigilantism or a disregard for due process. The question of the Bangladeshi immigrant is a key cog in India-Bangladesh ties as well, at a time when both New Delhi and Dhaka are looking to repair ties. Adhikari should leave politics at the door and trust the legal process.
